


[Here Comes the First Day — author commentary]

by zozo



Series: Here Comes the First Day [22]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Author Commentary, Behind the Scenes, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24629215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zozo/pseuds/zozo
Summary: Not a fic.Unused notes and lore from Parts 1–19 ofHere Comes the First Day, and a (slightly premature) series afterword.
Series: Here Comes the First Day [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755943
Comments: 114
Kudos: 140





	1. Season 1 commentary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a ridiculous number of notes while writing these stories, and I want to clear my mental slate before I start Season 2 in earnest, so here are all the things I want you to know about Season 1 that nobody asked me in the comments. (If you want more lore and headcanons, the comments on each individual story are where to start.)
> 
> This is absolutely self-indulgent nonsense, but fuck it, we’re talking about 64,719 words of my id and superego feeling each other up in public. What’s another drop in the ocean?

### 1\. [the lights of little towns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24240040)

  * Filename: `spin-the-bottle-trash.md`
  * Title song: The World/Inferno Friendship Society, [“Hothouse Flowers”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=pPS5zSpmZmY) ( _“Laments and rowdy songs and hymns about sin/Highlights and reels, a tarantell’ violin/Other people’s apartments and couches and clothes/Young again, lost again/Here we are, here we go”_ )
  * This was supposed to be an exercise in flirty banter, bouncing different character dynamics off each other, and building sexual tension without going past first base. Then I ended up literally needing a spreadsheet to keep all the pairings straight. (In retrospect, that should have been a sign of things to come.)
  * I wanted Seamista to stick around for the game too but once I started putting the spreadsheet together, I realized 6 players would be hard enough to manage—8 would have been a nightmare, I’d never have finished writing it.
  * Netossa and Spinny didn’t come to the party—nobody’s actually seen them since Horde Prime’s defeat, and no one will see them again for about three months. (They’re fine. They just need a _lot_ of time alone together.)
  * That’s one magic-ass bottle they’re using, btw, which does to probability what Season 5 did to astrophysics: if you can forgive the dramatically-escalating nature of the pairings it “chooses,” it never picks the same pairing twice—if, hypothetically, I ever went to parties like this, we, hypothetically, had an additional layer of rules for your 2nd, 3rd, etc. kiss with the same person because that comes up constantly when you play for real—but SPREADSHEET.
  * I’m so fuckin’ weak for Scorfuma, guys. There will be a lot more of them in Season 2.
  * All future “therapy” scenes with Perfuma should be read while forgetting that she and Catra made out once, thx.
  * Adora and Glimmer both seizing their chance to really kiss the h*ck out of Scorpia is a mood, isn’t it?
  * Please always drink responsibly, but if you were to make a drinking game for my fanfics, the phrase “the mighty She-Ra” should be worth at least a sip.
  * The scene of the couples splitting off to chat came about because I couldn’t bring myself to write a Catra/Scorpia kiss (pre–next story especially), so talking about it w/ Adora counted for checking it off on the spreadsheet.
  * I am very attached to my headcanon of Scorpia as someone who _knew_ about romance and kissing and even sex, but just never had the opportunity to practice any of it in the Horde. So it’s not a mystery to her, just new. (I wrote Scorfuma smut after S4 with an inexperienced-but-smooth Scorpia + an experienced-but-nervous Perfuma and I still love that vibe even if the fic turned out only so-so.)
  * I’ll never be able to contain my mushy Glimbow feelings. Part of Bow’s big heart is his absolute unshakeable confidence in Glimmer’s love for him—and she justifies that trust by being completely transparent with him about her Glitradora feelings.
  * Will literally never pass up an excuse for some background Bowhawk, tho.
  * Catra thinks she won, but I think the real MVP here is Bow, who walked into a game of Spin the Bottle with his brand new girlfriend, a girl he went on at least one previous date with, and three whole lesbians—and walked out a perfect gentleman.



### 2\. [things that we play at are not us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273037)

  * Filename: `catpology.md`
  * Title song: Also the World/Inferno Friendship Society, [“We Will Never Run into One Another on Trains”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=FoUg8PQ81qc) ( _“I wrote you a note saying I was leaving, and I left/It’s all yours and mine now…”_ )
  * Didn’t realize Shadow Weaver’s creepy garden was going to become a central motif of this. Please forget about the fact that she also had a greenhouse in the show—I did and now it’s too late.
  * “Why the _fuck_ did they let Shadow Weaver have an evil garden” is one of my favourite running jokes. Throw that in the drinking game too.
  * I was going to do more with that memorial Perfuma was designing. Season 2 could get pretty non-linear—I might jump around the timeline to hit emotional beats I didn’t get to in Season 1.
  * Catra is 100% certain that Perfuma will fuckin’ merc her if she hurts Scorpia again. And I’m not saying she’s wrong.
  * But I think this is where I decided to do the Perfuma-therapy subplot, because at this point Catra needed way more of an emotional support system than just Adora.
  * I think Scorpia, as the only person with a heart big enough to rival Bow, had already gotten to a place of… if not peace, then okay-ness with Catra, even before this convo. Scorpia wanted her to apologize, of course, but she’d seen enough of Catra’s atoning efforts to accept it as an unspoken apology and decided that could be enough for her own forgiveness process. So this was something she wanted but never thought she’d get—and Catra doesn’t realize it, but if she hadn’t said all this, she’d never have been more than friendly-acquaintances with Scorpia ever again.
  * I shipped Scorptra so hard at the start of Season 3. (A nice complement to the Glimmadora train I was on at the time.) And then 3x04 “The Portal” Sea-Hawk’d that ship to ashes. I think from here they’ll become friends, closer than they were in the Horde even, but idk—at least for me, romance is off the table for them forever.
  * Adora’s like, “Sup, Scorpia, have fun losing your virginity last night?” And Scorpia’s like, “…yes.”



### 3\. [the velocity of love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316279)

  * Filename: `preglitradora.md`
  * Title song: World/Inferno again, [“Velocity of Love”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=X_1swz7h1wU) ( _“I am bored of the big stuff/So we fucked up, I want my hope back”_ )
  * I feel like smell doesn’t get used enough as a sensory touchstone in fanfic, so this is kind of my attempt to nudge that needle a bit.
  * Catra never learned how to read analogue clocks in the Horde, because all the clocks there were digital.
  * Sleepy mumbly Adora is one of the cutest things I’ve ever written imho.
  * Melog’s little lecture about deserving is a thing my therapist used to say a lot. (Another one you wanted to avoid around him was “supposed to,” same lecture; and if I ever said “should” he’d bust out the dad joke “careful not to ‘should’ yourself.” Hope he’s doing good in Winnipeg, the massive nerd.)
  * When I was in high school, I had a friend who would fuck her boyfriend in his car at lunch and come to third period just _reeking_ of sex. Not that we weren’t all stinky teenagers at the time, but like… Anyway, I don’t know if anyone ever called her on it; I sure didn’t.
  * I do think, if Catra hadn’t been choking down a jawbreaker-sized sour candy of trauma with a sweet Adora centre, she would have been attracted to Scorpia in the Horde—so it’s interesting that she draws a parallel between Scorpia and Glimmer’s emotional transparency, isn’t it.
  * Catra still thinks like a supervillain even when the worst thing she’s doing is lightly teasing her friend.
  * This is a platonic (if slightly charged) “I love you” between Catra and Glimmer for now. Still a milestone for Catra, though.
  * Catra’s tendency towards emotional overwhelm is just me IRL. Shoutout to the people in my life who know when to ease up on the feels-throttle.
  * Sleepy Adora sleepily proposing a threesome is another one of the cutest things I’ve ever written.



### 4\. [can’t trust the weather to bring us together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329893)

  * Filename: `spaaaaace.md`
  * Title song: Oh Pep!, [“Parallel”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=B4IR2bJXJZ8) ( _“I’m coming up when you’re coming down/Meet in the middle, try to figure it out”_ )
  * Sometimes you’re a bunch of horny 21-year-olds in an enclosed space and the walls are thin and you gotta do what you gotta do… but no, Glimmer, we don’t deliberately eavesdrop on our friends’ orgasms without permission. Netossa, pass me the spray bottle.
  * Adora and Catra’s teasing from the show translates perfectly to teasing each other about sex. It’s a little uncanny.
  * Adora is a colossal failure at playing hard to get <3
  * There were definitely people who read this one first, didn’t realize it was a sequel, then discovered the sexy Spin the Bottle game I alluded to was a whole entire story on its own. We should all be so lucky.
  * These fics have an extremely pro-women’s-body-hair agenda, in case you hadn’t noticed :)
  * As I’m writing this, I’m thinking, “Okay, hopefully this is just transgressive enough to be kinda hot without being overtly gross,” and then as it developed I was like, “Great, now at some point I’m going to have to write a scene of Glimmer apologizing for this before they can all hook up.”
  * Glimmer’s telling herself she’s undressing for purely practical reasons. Sure, Glim.
  * I’m already planning to bend this rule at least once in Season 2 but I try to never end a story on an angsty note—I always try to throw in a “soft landing” so you don’t walk away feeling (too) crummy.
  * Catra says she’s a sexpert, but if there’s a degree on her wall, I haven’t seen it.



### 5\. [hard as rocks and nails underneath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340855)

  * Filename: `cemetery.md`
  * Title song: Heavens to Betsy, [“Complicated”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3hEx1BBdkq4), aka my Glitra angst ANTHEM ( _“I know I build walls all around/I’m begging you to knock them down/But yours are just as big and mean as mine/Tight defences, and we draw the line”_ )
  * Inspirations: this [stunning fanart you’ve probably already seen](https://catradora.tumblr.com/post/619109082676297728/this-cant-be-what-you-wanted-id-rather), and my narrative need to clear the air about Angella so Catra and Glimmer can fall in love without that hanging over their heads.
  * I had zero intention of ever bringing Angella back when I wrote this, btw.
  * I don’t want to say much more because I think the story speaks for itself, but this is my best answer to everyone who said “Glimmer could never forgive Catra for killing her mother.”
  * Characters waking up, or suffering insomnia, at the beginnings of these stories is a deliberate motif, not me lazily repeating myself, I swear.
  * If you’re going to combine the laws of Salineas and the Kingdom of Snows you’re going to need to keep both Salineas’s maritime regulations about what kind of boats need what kind of lights at night, and all the requirements in Frosta’s kingdom about leaving your outbuildings unlocked so people can shelter in them if they get stuck in the cold. Just saying.
  * My characters drink a lot of hot cocoa. That’s because I haven’t decided yet whether coffee exists in Etheria, and also because cocoa is fucking delicious.
  * Nobody ever asked me about the 27 islands of Etherian hell, but they’re arranged in three groups of three groups of three. It’s less “fire and brimstone” and more the “bleak wasteland” kind of hell: the islands are suspended in an endless lightless void.
  * If someone’s kneeling in front of you with their muscles generally relaxed and you kick them in the jaw as hard as you can, you’re going to do an extraordinary amount of damage. Catra knows this.
  * “No one said it was going to be easy” comes up a couple times; it’s one of a few not-quite-cheerful mantras I have for accepting the present moment. Predates by years my discovery of [this brilliant AMV](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NvD87frXMR8), but I’m happy to consider its presence here a retroactive reference.



### 6\. [how strange it is to be anything at all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24345697)

  * Filename: `catherapy.md`
  * Title song: Neutral Milk Hotel, [“In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=1FeD16vu_qQ) ( _“What a beautiful face I have found in this place/That is circling all ’round the sun/What a beautiful dream that could flash on the screen/In a blink of an eye and be gone”_ ). I have [this piece of art](https://inescapable.org/img/spopaeroplane.jpg) (that’s someone else’s photo tho) next to my bed.
  * Inspiration: Catra really needed a source of emotional support outside the slowly coalescing polycule, and I love Perfuma.
  * The unpopular little wooden stool is [one of these](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8M3aN8t3zIY/UK59i_6x9iI/AAAAAAAAAGA/pUDST1s-cGE/s1600/007ad-Bench-Bianca.jpg), which looks dire but is actually the most comfortable thing I’ve ever meditated on.
  * Shoutout to the person who turned me onto gratitude journaling way back in 2002: [Wil Wheaton](http://wilwheaton.net/2002/02/flamenco_sketches/), of all people.
  * Nobody laughed at “Goodsmellia” :(
  * I have a personal rule not to give mental health/meditation/etc. advice to people unless they specifically ask for it—which I decided didn’t count if I’m writing fiction where one character advises another—so writing all this stuff down unprompted felt very strange, but it was also nice to just sort of free-associate about mental health coping strategies for a while :)
  * Catra uses logic to find her way into things like I did when I started.
  * The weightlifting analogy is something I came up with myself and it’s probably one of the smartest things that’s ever fallen out of my (extremely buff btw) brain.
  * I don’t want to think too hard about a suicidal 12-year-old Perfuma tbqh, but a lot of people like me started dealing with that shit in middle school or earlier. And even if you get past it as an adult (and a lot of people don’t), you were still thinking like that 24/7 and your brain was still digging trenches that it might take your whole adult life to un-dig.
  * Perfuma making Catra feel manipulated into good mental health is another shoutout to my old therapist, that tricky bastard.



### 7\. [come on (let’s get complicated)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24370336)

  * Filenames: `glitradora1.md`, `glitradora2.md`, `glitradora3.md`, `glitradora4.md`
  * Title song: World/Inferno’s back with [“American Mercurial”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=yciMznquNIs) ( _“It feels like magic ’cause you can’t control it…/We fix our animals so they don’t act like this”_ )
  * I wrote the Glimbow scene days and days before the rest of it. Tried to capture that energy of getting involved with a long-time friend, where you’re still both like “whoa, I get to _touch you_ like this now.”
  * Also shoutout to when you first start having sex and you think doing it in the shower is an awesome idea but you just haven’t slipped and hurt yourself enough times to realize it’s actually extremely overrated compared to the nice dry bed in the next room.
  * No idea what was supposed to be in those bottles they’re drinking except that it was non-alcoholic, so I’ll decide now: Adora and Glimmer’s is something fruity-sweet and fizzy like an Italian soda; Catra’s drinking something uncarbonated and flavoured more like unsweetened grapefruit or cranberry juice—ooh, or maybe herbal like aromatic bitters.
  * I was going to throw in a runner about Perfuma and Catra smoking weed together (which was supposed to be why they skipped that meeting, lol) but it wasn’t that interesting and kind of redundant w/ their other scenes and I don’t think Catra would like weed anyway, so I dropped it.
  * Hate myself for hearing “welcome to the threesome, pal” in Jake Peralta’s _Die Hard_ voice, but I do, so now you have to as well.
  * Glimmer showed up to fuck, idk what to tell you ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
  * Catra and Adora trying to get all domme with Glimmer for a minute and utterly failing was funny to write.
  * Catra teasing Adora about their squeaky bunk bed is another underappreciated joke imho
  * Didn’t want to overdo the sitting back-to-back thing, but I also couldn’t resist.



### 8\. [hell is full of faithless hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24416347)

  * Filename: `evilgarden.md`, `evilgarden2.md`
  * Title song: World/Inferno _again_ , [“The Apple Was Eve”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=LsRq0nQTiSI) ( _“I will spit on your grave when the winter comes/But at your grave I shall be”_ )
  * The dining room scenes in both chapters were to emphasize that despite the various relationships forming within the group, the squad itself is an important relationship too. Just because they’re not _that_ kind of intimate doesn’t mean Bow & Catra, and Bow & Adora, don’t love each other immensely too.
  * “[Catra] had been planning to go in with just a machete and a shovel and start hacking away.” I hope you all realize that Catra would have fucking died if she’d done this.
  * Yes, Micah accepts Glitradora immediately. A world without homophobia or transphobia can also be a world where people are chill about poly relationships.
  * Not likely to create many OCs for this series but everyone say hi to Euthalia the chief groundskeeper. She is an SPOP-brand Muscular Background Lady and if you need her we’ll be smooching behind the toolshed.
  * The special gloves are an oblique reference to the many delightful descriptions of magically-protective apparel in Garth Nix’s _Sabriel_ and its sequels.
  * I did _not_ expect to have as much fun as I did making up different evil plants. The asphodel will give you mercury poisoning! If this balsam is so dangerous, how did it evolve alongside any other forms of life? Shut up, that’s how!
  * I really just meant for Catra to have suffered a very painful and sustained fit of racking coughs, but y’all were so worried about her that I wrote Chapter 2, and that’s one of my favourite chapters in the whole “season,” so special thanks to everyone who was like “fucking hell, I hope Catra’s okay” in the comments of Chapter 1.
  * How does Catra, who grew up in the Horde, know that honey and a little bit of whiskey in tea is nice for a sore throat? Shut up, that’s how.
  * Catra’s not traumatized by men or anything, she’s just so much of a lesbian—male physicality is so far outside her desires or comfort zone—that it’s just a little disorienting, especially when it’s comforting or loving contact like she gets in this story.
  * Shoutout to Bow’s double-dad face. Two dads = twice the dad face, that’s just math.



### 9\. [all i need is a ladder (i want to touch your sky)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447865)

  * Filename: `latenight.md` (they’re not all funny, ok)
  * Title song: Tegan and Sara, [“Heavy”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=1C6MNhh7Ge8) ( _“You’re heavy in my heart/You’re heavy in my hands/You’re heavy in my mouth/You’re heavy in my day/You’re heavy in my songs/You’re heavy in my night/And you’re all that I want”_ )
  * I paused writing the next story to skip back and write this one—after I wrote the brief flashback conversation about Shadow Weaver, the way they were arranged in bed was too appealing to not run with, so this is the sex they had before that scene.
  * This fic is sympathetic to all the characters because I’ve been the person who’s just trying to sleep while my bedmates were fucking and I’ve been one of the people fucking while (sort of) trying not to wake up the third person in bed with us. It’s the way of threesomes when you don’t have work in the morning, I guess.
  * But [did I mention Catra has fur all over her body](https://emilythesphericalrobot.tumblr.com/post/619561514005872640/me-writing-fanfic-did-i-mention-catra-has-fur) enough?



### 10\. [there’ll never be enough of us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24468013)

  * Filename: `catherapedux.md` (cat+therapy+redux)
  * Title song: Lorde, [“Buzzcut Season”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=pstVCGyaUBM) ( _“So now we live beside the pool/Where everything is good”_ )
  * If I recall correctly, this uses some elements from my aborted “Perfuma and Catra smoke weed” story notes.
  * I’m a grown-ass woman and if my good friend and pseudo-therapist lived in a cute little tent that I could walk to from my bedroom in five minutes, I would never be able to drop in on her unscheduled either, no matter how many times she invited me.
  * These idiots still haven’t figured out about shower sex yet.
  * SURPRISE SCORFUMA. Actually this was pretty clearly telegraphed but still. Kissing!
  * My headcanon for the different dynamics among the Lonnie/Kyle/Rogelio throuple are about as complicated as the BFS but I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to writing anything about it.
  * Frosta’s the one helping Scorpia with the amnesty law because she has the most experience of any of the princesses with the legal side of ruling, obvs.
  * Perfuma’s going away for three weeks and Catra has no abandonment issues about it—that’s growth, babey.
  * More creepy made-up plants. You don’t want to know what that vine smells like.
  * There’s a concept that comes up in sci-fi sometimes called “nano-filaments” or similar, theoretical threads a single molecule thick that can, by virtue of their minimal surface area, cut through any solid matter with virtually no resistance. Anyway, that’s more or less the spines on a bleak thistle.
  * I get a lot of enjoyment imagining Catra’s discovery of the Bright Moon swimming pool. “Just a giant hole full of water” indeed.



### 11\. [the ones you light your fires to keep away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482080)

  * Filename: `nightmares.md`
  * Title song: Radiohead, [“Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor…”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hetqKun4XFg) ( _“All the holes at once/Are coming alive, set free/Out of sight and out of mind/The lonely and their prey…”_ )
  * The official lyrics—I have the postcard pack from W.A.S.T.E.—are in the singular (“the one you light your fires…”) but in the _AMSP_ recording Thom clearly sings “the ones” in the first chorus, which makes a better title if you’re not including the (now incorrectly) singular verb form on the next line.
  * Yes, we Radiohead fans are pretty much all like this.
  * Anyway, _this_ story was originally of a piece with the Seamista/Glimbow double date—it’s set the same night, after the Catra/Adora conversation that kicks off the date story. When the tone of the two subplots started to, uh, _diverge_ too much, I split them up.
  * I did not feel great writing Catra’s memory/dream sequence. I don’t enjoy violence at all, even in fiction. Where the _fuck_ did that come from?
  * Catra just fuckin’ chomping down on Adora’s shoulder was as surprising to me as anyone.
  * Adora wanting to do something suicidally reckless because she thinks Catra’s dead? Hm, sounds fake, idk…
  * I really like the mutual-support dynamics that can emerge in a close multi-person relationship (bet that’s a surprise to anyone reading this, lmao.) E.g. Catra wishing Glimmer had been there for both her and Adora.



### 12\. [all my wishes one day will be true](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495598)

  * Filename: `doubledate.md`
  * Title song: Big Wreck, [“Ease My Mind”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=PV-HdV4jUdk) ( _“When you’re like the sky, and I’m like the ground/And nobody’s right or wrong/Well, you ease my mind”_ )
  * This is just 2K words of bisexual solidarity.
  * Adora and Sea Hawk’s ongoing arm-wrestling rivalry FTW.
  * I laughed _so_ fucking hard writing that nautical/homoerotical joke.
  * Mermista is great. Living her best deadpan life and making everyone around her spit-take. “I hate your girlfriend for devastating my home in that war that gave us all PTSD, but I’m still happy for you that she’s blowing your back out on the regular.” Legends only.
  * I really meant for Bow and Sea Hawk to be more involved in this story but the idea of them spending the whole thing out of focus in the background flirting with each other and struggling to start a bar-wide singalong was too funny to resist.
  * Season 2 will definitely have more Bowhawk shenanigans, in the foreground this time, as well as the much-requested Catra and Mermista interaction—though probably not in the same story.



### 13\. [a land of holidays](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24526522)

  * Filenames: `h0rdak[1-5].md`
  * Title song (and epigraphs, and chapter titles): Frankie Sparo’s 2003 album [_Welcome Crummy Mystics_](https://youtube.com/watch?v=McuJx36pg10&list=PLnpQFjefXCRM23JHEHaaK9pPBvIRo7b_y). Not quite a concept album but pretty much all the songs are about a dude or dudes struggling with alienation and existentialism, so they felt apt for Hordak.
  * Leave it to me to write what’s essentially a songfic using the unpublished lyrics of an avant-garde Québécois musician from 20 years ago who nobody’s ever heard of.
  * The cold open, which starts not quite in medias res but right before a huge WTF moment, leading into a first act that starts days earlier and builds tension before catching up to where we came in, is a reference to the (over)use of that structure on the _Battlestar Galactica_ reboot, which for some reason has been on my mind a lot lately—in terms of viewer satisfaction, the BSG finale was almost the exact opposite of SPOP, but Horde Prime’s robot soldiers did have big [Cylon Centurion](https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/File:Centurion_on_Pegasus.jpg) energy.
  * Waterfall is the first board game I’ve ever invented! There are more details about how it works in the Chapter 1 comments.
  * The A/N on Chapter 2 is because I really didn’t want people thinking Hordak was, like, me trying to do ace representation or something. I don’t know what makes ace _humans_ the way they are, but there are very alien-clone-specific reasons for Hordak’s “asexuality” and I was worried someone would take it the wrong way. (Ditto the admittedly obvious trans overtones to what Zed is up to, except while I’m not ace, I am trans, and I don’t want my fellow transes to cancel me for my bizarre alien headcanons so I tried to keep the details as vague and inhuman as possible.)
  * This brings [“in the hearts of kings”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24218530) into _Here Comes the First Day_ continuity, but I noticed folks were leaving bookmarks noting which numbered part they’d left off reading in the series, so I didn’t want to renumber everything and fuck them up.
  * I was thrilled all the technobabble went over so well. It was incredibly fun to write. (And yes, every bit of that console output means something specific, it’s not just keysmashing.)
  * My primary SF touchstones for this stuff were the video games The Talos Principle, SOMA, Tacoma, and The Fall (Parts 1 and 2); plus several different 1990s-2000s novels by Canadian author Robert Sawyer (which themselves almost certainly influenced SOMA).
  * Hordak being like “Bow has pretty good computer skills… for a dumb ol’ human” :)
  * Perfuma having a positive influence on everyone’s mental health :) :) :)
  * Chapter 3 reads surprisingly smoothly imho, given that I literally wrote it outwards from the scene right after Hordak sacrifices himself. Everything from the start up to that point was written in reverse order like watching _Memento_.
  * I cried my fuckin’ eyes out writing Entrapta’s dialogue in the sacrifice scene, by the way. And while editing it. And while proofreading it. I could hear Christine Woods’s delivery in my head and it was killing me.
  * This probably could have been split into more than five chapters but I only had so many thematically-appropriate Sparo epigraphs, what can you do.
  * Speaking of actors, love writing for Micah because then I get to hear Daniel Dae Kim’s dad-voice in my mind’s ear.
  * I liked writing the Hordak parts of this story and I’m glad I wrote them and I’m proud of how they came out—but finally getting to write that Catradora scene at the end of Chapter 4 was like a cold glass of water after walking across a hot desert all day. I’m just not meant to write that many words in a row with _no_ sapphic smooching whatsoever.
  * Tried transcribing Adora’s soothing sounds but it came out more silly than sweet. (Cried writing that part too.)
  * Snarky flirty competitiveness that’s half serious/half performance for Adora is, of course, the O.G. Glitra dynamic, but I love to write these tender little moments too that show Catra isn’t just falling in love with Glimmer, she’s fucking _plummeting_.
  * Literally forbade myself from working on Chapter 5 until Ch. 2, 3 and the first part of 4 were substantially done. Maybe you can eat your dessert first and still want your vegetables after, but not me.
  * My idea of dressing up is jeans without too many holes in them and one of my “good flannels,” so I had to google “lesbian formalwear” to figure out Adora and Catra’s outfits. I don’t have the source for [Adora’s](https://inescapable.org/img/spopadoraoutfit.jpg) because I found it on Pinterest; Catra’s suit was also from Pinterest, but I’m pretty sure it was a Facebook photo of someone’s high school graduation, so I didn’t save a copy.
  * But, um, yeah. Adora’s outfit. Managed to fluster _myself_ there, whew.
  * Nobody’s bothered by the queen’s little polycule, but word is getting out that it’s a thing, so yeah, they’re under a little more of a social spotlight now. (At some point someone’s going to say the phrase “queen’s consort” in front of Catra and Catra’s literally going to jump out a second-storey window.)
  * “She ends up in the fucking cemetery again” isn’t a _deliberate_ Bo Burnham reference ([“It feels like hay, it’s a fuckin’ scarecrow again!”](https://youtube.com/watch?v=y7im5LT09a0&t=2m21s)) but I do listen to _Make Happy_ a lot and sometimes the Bo jumps out.
  * “An ultra-low-voltage electrostatic field” is how your smartphone’s touchscreen works, more or less.
  * I regret to inform you that the window to become Zozo’s Favourite Commenter Ever has expired, and no favourite will be chosen, as not a single one of you left a comment along the lines of _“♪ Glimmer’s mom has got it goin’ on ♫”_. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.



* * *

And with that, `@notes-spop-2020.md` can get moved to the archive, and work on Season 2 can officially begin.

Questions about Season 1 stuff can go in the comments below, or back on the relevant story. Questions about Season 2 stuff… you’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading 💖


	2. Season 2 commentary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew the momentum wasn’t going to last forever. I was three attempts and nearly 2,500 words into drafting the next story before I realized everything I’d written so far needed to be about one paragraph of exposition in the _actual_ story—and then I realized I didn’t have a hook for that story and wasn’t overly invested in finding one—and then before I could get my mojo back with another idea, a bunch of real-life stuff came down on me all at once, and whoosh: exit wind from sails.
> 
> I’m not _done_ -done—I have more to say about this world and these characters, both in and out of this continuity—but the phase of my life where I spent every spare moment writing and editing fanfic seems to have passed. I’ll be honest, I’m going to miss it, but I’m also relieved my extremely public sprint across a tightrope is finally over. And damn, 90,101 words of fanfic in a month? (Plus god knows how much meta in the comments here, and over on Tumblr too?) Even my nastiest inner critic can only fold her arms and sulk at _that_.
> 
> I would have loved to write just one more story before calling a hiatus, partly to make it an even 20, and partly because having two “seasons” of 13 + 7 would have been a funny, unintentional parallel to canon. But honestly, whatever I do next—even if I come right back to this series, who knows—it’s going to be easier if I draw a line under things here.

### 2.1. [i am in love with you, it is my only grace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24637561)

  * Filename: `glitra4cr.md`
  * Title song: “[a few words for the firing squad (radiation)](https://youtu.be/5dgH1mlXDhA)” from [_Run the Jewels 4_](https://runthejewels.com/). 
    * _“I woke up early once again, that’s four days straight / I didn’t wake you, baby, I just watched you lay / In the radiation of the city sun / I am in love with you, it is my only grace…”_
    * Because sometimes I’m hyperfixating on two things at once and can’t help myself. There are maybe… 24 non-consecutive bars on this raunchy political hip-hop album that could be applied to SPOP and I’m going to use them [**_all_**](https://emilythesphericalrobot.tumblr.com/post/620094078671093760/catradora-angst-rtj4). (Maybe not the Perfuma ones.)
  * Based on an accidental prompt by the wonderful CosmicRebellion: “Catra better have found Glimmer and just drowned her with kisses given how she was missing her when their conversation ended.” (Narrator: “She did.”)
  * Nobody caught this: Glimmer’s dark blue dress + her pink and purple hair = bi pride colours 😎
  * Also, Bow knew Glimmer was wearing that dress tonight and picked Catra’s suit to match.
  * I didn’t figure out an outfit for Bow but it was going to be black-and-white like Adora’s—with a bare midriff, of course.
  * I tried so hard to change my mental picture of the Bright Moon service corridors to anything besides a _Skyrim_ interior and I just couldn’t. 



### 2.2. [the longest wavelength](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669271)

  * Filenames: `rolltape{1,2,3}.md`
  * Title song: “[Anything We Want](https://youtu.be/wKtOAdeHcYc)” by Fiona Apple 
    * _“My cheeks were reflecting the longest wavelength / My fan was folded up and grazing my forehead / And I kept touching my neck to guide your eye to where / I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone…”_
  * Initial story seeds were “alone time for Glimmadora” (other dynamics had been ascendant, it was time to get back to my roots) and “Adora finds a gay-ass recording of Light Hope and Mara” (self-explanatory). Those merged to become “Adora and Glimmer find it together”, and then my next note is “oh god what if it’s like rEAL spicy tho” and then I remembered the _Tacoma_ fic… and it was off to the races. 
    * I swear I tried not to hit _every_ beat from [that ODIN/Sareh story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903447), but it was engraved so deeply on my brain that the influence was unavoidable. Ultimately I tried not to lean too hard towards _or_ away from it, and just wrote what felt right for Mara and Light Hope.
  * If you haven’t played [_Tacoma_](https://tacoma.game/), it’s an extremely queer video game for most platforms that takes about three hours to 100% complete, and it’s one of my favourite SF stories of all time. 
    * Besides the AI/human romance, the rest of this fic has big _Tacoma_ energy too: the holographic CCTV footage, recovering partially-corrupted data, women kissing each other…
  * Alternate loglines: 
    * “Adora and Glimmer indulge in a little historical RPS”
    * “Adora finds Light Hope’s porn folder”
    * “Adora has taken a lot of inspiration from Mara since becoming She-Ra, but never quite like this”
    * “Glimmer and Adora almost watch a dead couple’s sex tape” (© Timeline15)
  * Adora’s not at target practice because she’s not really a ranged fighter, is she. (Neither is Catra, but she’s trying new things.)
  * Mara’s access code is meant to evoke _Star Trek_ for sure, but here it’s more like an employee number than a password: it’s a reference phrase Light Hope uses to scan Mara’s voice and other biometrics and verify her ID against the permissions on her user profile. If you were wondering. 
    * #disableetiquetteprotocols2k20 #letlighthopesayfuck #letlighthopefuck
  * Where my fellow shoulders people at 👀
  * “Maybe the only unforgivable thing is _not_ trying to fix what you broke.” 
    * I try not to set too many arbitrary writing rules for myself, but I decided that my reward for hitting 80,000 words was letting one (1) character say the moral of the story out loud.
  * Catra’s tiny shorts are the ones Adora is wearing in [this non-series fic I wrote](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24472324), because Catra wears Adora’s clothes like 85% of the time.



### 2.3. [life don’t get stranger than this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700945)

  * Filename: `onaboat0.md`
    * This was originally going to be Chapter 1 of the “Sea Hawk’s birthday party” story but I don’t think I’d be overstating things to say it took on a life of its own.
  * Title song: “[Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space](https://youtu.be/wg5GlmzIIZo)” by Spiritualized, specifically the original version with lyrics from “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley. 
    * _“All I want in life’s a little bit of love to take the pain away / Getting strong today / A giant step each day…”_
    * Plus possibly the most iconic wedding song ever? If you wanted subtlety you should have clicked on someone else’s fanfic >:3
    * I ended up feeling a way when I was searching for the right title and discovered just how few straightforward love songs there are in my massive music library.
  * Not _directly_ inspired by strangehunger’s “[keep on walking, come what will](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24435565)” (which does have Catradora going to a Seamista-thrown party right after getting Etherian-engaged) but I do feel like our stories would go nicely together on a playlist or something.
  * My inner critic—not the useful one—kept asking, “Weren’t these characters just _at_ a party?” Then I remembered: they ended a decades-long war like a month ago _and_ brought down the oppressive ruler of the known universe _and then_ they brought Glimmer’s _mom_ back from the _dead_. I could have set every single _one_ of these stories at a party and it would have made sense. Get fucked, inner critic 🎊🍾🎉
  * Of course I always intended to start the “season” with a Glitra–Glimmadora–Catradora triptych. I wasn’t just picking ideas off the pile at random and it somehow worked out that way—it was absolutely intentional, because I can such smart the writing 👍



### 2.4. [use our eyes, throw our hands overboard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718138)

  * Filename: `onaboat1.md`
  * Title song: “[The Louvre](https://youtu.be/sFCL6f7hy2s)” by Lorde. 
    * _“A rush at the beginning / I get caught up, just for a minute…”_ (but tbh the “overboard” pun tipped it for me)
  * It’s weirder writing about these characters drinking alcohol than it is writing about them having sex.
  * Shoutout to the gorgeous bartender with the shaved head and scalp tattoos at the downtown goth club c. 2007, where I made so many excuses to be the one to fetch drinks. 
    * Blushing every time you order is one thing, but please never, ever actually hit on a bartender, omg. Channel that energy into leaving them a big tip and get back to your business, they’re trying to work.
  * Want to read a _really_ good Seamista fic? “[i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19240324)” by erce3 is both a soulmate fic (not typically on my radar) and a modern AU (same) where most of the characters are co-workers at a natural history museum—and it’s immediately funny and engaging, and the voices are absolutely canonical, and I loved it.



### 2.5. [help is just around the corner (for us)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24728995)

  * Filename: `bg-glimbow.md`
  * Title song: “[Help is Round the Corner](https://youtu.be/LWEVc336LaU)” by Coldplay. 
    * _“My head just won’t stop aching / And I’m sat here licking my wounds / And I’m shattered, but it really doesn’t matter / ’Cause my rescue is gonna be here soon…”_
    * Coldplay turned out deeply uncool, but this song is from the six-month window like 20 years ago when they were the _coolest_.
  * “Canon, but they were secretly hooking up the whole time” is one of my favourite tropes—I’ve even [used it before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14173083)—but I’d never have thought to use it on Glimbow without, well, a certain fic I think we’re all familiar with by now.
  * I went back and forth on whether to mark this as part of the series, since it’s set well before the Spin the Bottle party that marks the divergence point of my little AU, but I decided I was writing the character dynamics with a mind to how they’d evolve into the relationships I’d been writing about, so it felt appropriate to include.
  * I love how this turned out and I’m glad I wrote it, but also I’ve never written anything that was basically just transcribing from canon, and it felt a little like tracing over someone else’s artwork.



### 2.6. [and all that we’ve been through](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759790)

  * Filename: `catroubledora.md`
  * Title song: “[Wicked Ways](https://youtu.be/9M7y2e0_5IA)” by Garbage. 
    * _“I’ve done things I never thought I’d do / Sure, it helps to lose myself in you / A little time, I’ll be all right / C’mon sugar, let’s go out tonight / Forgive your trespasses and all that we’ve been through…”_
  * Inspiration: The Catrouble dream was meant to evoke the vibe of [this fanart by kg-nonameh](https://kg-nonameh.tumblr.com/post/188883418728/i-pray-for-catradora-every-sunday-at-church-but-i), but was more directly inspired by how hard I swooned looking through [sheblah’s breathtakingly cute/sexy DT drawings](https://sheblah.tumblr.com/tagged/my-art).
  * That opening scene would have been a lot steamier if I didn’t half-intend to write a whole (out of this continuity) Catra/DT smut story one day.
  * Bex is the same species(?) as the cute noseless ladies of Elberon.
  * This has another little reference to “Don’t Go,” actually: the idea that Adora was by far the squarest cadet in the Horde, and the other Horde kids were hooking up and swapping contraband and smoking cigarettes on the roof all around her, bless her heart <3



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to once again thank everyone who read, left kudos, commented, bookmarked, subscribed, recommended, and contributed ideas to these stories. I had so much fun writing and sharing these with all of you. I feel like I really expanded my horizons as a writer, and—this sounds wild, but—I think I even grew a little as a person. It’s been an honour and a pleasure entertaining you all. Take care of each other and stay safe.
> 
> Love,  
> Amy aka Zozo aka @[emilythesphericalrobot](https://emilythesphericalrobot.tumblr.com/)


	3. our bedroom after the war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slightly premature series afterword.

Over the past six-ish months, a few very kind people have said that this series of fanfics, in some way or another, changed their life—and even if that’s only by virtue of being a fan-service-filled chaser to a superbly-written TV series, I’m thrilled and honoured to accept the compliment from atop Noelle & Co.’s very fine shoulders.

Whether you feel like reading these stories changed your life or not, I’ll tell you a secret: _writing_ them absolutely changed mine.

* * *

 _She-Ra and the Princesses of Power_ meant a lot to me, obviously. If you’re reading this, it probably meant a lot to you too. And Seasons 1–4 mean something different to me than Season 5. Because I had a “Catra” in my life too. And when I started watching the show, I thought I was her Adora.

Over the course of the first four seasons, as they drifted further and further away from each other, and Adora started to close off her heart, and Catra’s behaviour got more and more egregiously harmful—to herself and everyone around her—it was bitterly painful for me to watch, and deeply cathartic.

“My Catra” didn’t get a “redemption arc.” Maybe she will—maybe she already has—but I won’t be a part of it. She did too much damage, forced the gap between us too wide to ever close or cross. I knew what she’d need to do to make amends with me, and I’d known her since we were very young—I knew she’d never expend that much effort. Not on that. Not for me.

Because I wasn’t her Adora. I was her Scorpia.

I loved Season 5. I loved the finale. I _loved_ how Catradora turned out. Seeing them save the world with their love was such a gratifying and joyful experience for me, as both a romantic-ass lesbian and a fan of well-executed TV—I’ve wanted to see a story end _exactly like that_ my whole life.

But they could have ended right after “Princess Scorpia” in Season 4 and I wouldn’t love it any less. The image from _She-Ra and the Princesses of Power_ that will always, always mean the most to me is Scorpia with her backpack over her shoulder, Emily at her side, finally loving herself enough to walk away.

* * *

When I sat down to write [the Spin the Bottle story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24240040), I wasn’t expecting it to be the start of a series. I wasn’t expecting anything at all, really. I was still hyped from the finale, I didn’t have anything else to do that afternoon, and I’m a big fan of no-strings-attached kissing IRL—it felt like a cute way to kill some time.

But I made a fateful “mistake” in that fic: I tugged on a couple of threads also left dangling in canon—the sexual tension between Catra and Glimmer (heyyyy) and Catra’s remorse over Scorpia (hmmmm)—and _I_ didn’t resolve them either. So [the Catra–Scorpia reconciliation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273037) felt like something I _needed_ to write if I wanted to think about anything else ever again.

Because of the narrative, I mean.

And then [the Glitra sleepover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316279) was more or less a proof-of-concept for writing this thing until the wheels came off, and it turned out so well I basically hooked _myself_ on the story—which left me literally only one way to find out how it ended. (The fanfic author’s lament.)

Fortunately I had plenty of free time, since I was gradually returning to work from disability leave, and writing these stories and reading the unbelievably generous, enthusiastic comments—more on those in a bit—was making me feel great.

* * *

I don’t identify as “a polyamorous person.” My romantic history isn’t exclusively monogamous, but every up-close experience I ever had—mine or my close friends’—with Polyamory™ was excruciatingly painful at best and grossly toxic at worst. Shitty people are, of course, shitty in any kind of relationship; these specific shitty people weaponized the polyamory-specific aspects of those relationships against me, and much like malicious cheating might spoil monogamy for a while, the idea of anything even poly-adjacent put a sour feeling in my stomach for years.

But also, well, it had been years. I’d had my heart broken again since, quite badly, in a monogamous situation; romance with _any_ number of partners had become equally unappealing. And I eventually realized that, as the damn author, I could make everything about a poly Glitradora + Glimbow relationship go catastrophically _right_ , if I really wanted to. These characters were all written so loving and big-hearted in the first place, and their platonic interactions in canon are pretty idealized too—it didn’t feel out of character for them to be just as good at romance.

The bitter, bruised parts of my heart hated it, hated the idea that even fictional characters could care about each other so much, could love each other so well. But every time I felt myself start to flinch away, I made myself lean in instead, and idealized a little harder. Sometimes it felt like cleaning an infected wound.

I thought about the ways I’d been hurt, and I wrote about Adora and Catra and Glimmer and Bow doing the exact opposite. I contrived scenes where they’d receive support I’d needed, but had never got. They apologized to each other in ways I’d always needed people—certain, specific people—to apologize to me.

I wrote about them healing in ways that I’d healed, too—and in ways I was still trying to.

* * *

I eventually realized that if this was going to be an _ideal_ situation, Catra needed somebody to talk to outside of that relationship cluster. And bless Melog’s heart, but an ancient magical being who’s psychically connected to Catra’s emotions is a cheat code for conflict—Melog could speedrun several fics’ worth of character development for Catra in one (silent!) conversation.

Enter Perfuma. And she had to teach Catra _something_ , and I _have_ done a lot of therapy in my life—the particulars of which are not something I talk much about IRL, for one reason and another, and it turned out I had more than a little stored up to say. And I should have written it down years ago.

I picked up most of my best self-care strategies under extreme duress, and when I adapted those literal survival skills to situations that _weren’t_ a life-threatening crisis, it was mostly intuitive—I never formally codified everything, just eased up on the throttle and kept rolling.

So in writing [those pseudo-therapy scenes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24345697), selecting the “highlights” of what I’d learned over the years and distilling them to (hopefully!) effective character dialogue, I ended up finally organizing a lot of useful but scattered ideas into a more coherent whole than they’d ever been.

I basically levelled up in therapy one more time, years later, just so I could check “Catra gets emotional support from someone relatively uncomplicated” off my narrative to-do list.

* * *

Even online, I’m so shy that it can sometimes be debilitating. Once my publishing “schedule” picked up momentum, and the comments really started pouring in (by my standards, anyway), I tried to push through that anxiety and engage with as much of the kindness and enthusiasm and support as I could stand—and the results were extremely rewarding.

As the series went on, I got a little better at engaging, mainly by virtue of inertia—the more I peeked out of my shell, the easier it got, go figure. As the stories got more personal, so did the responses, and that validation of my vulnerability and effort turned into a delightful feedback loop: the more fanfic I wrote and published, the more energy I had to write and publish fanfic.

That was never going to be permanent, but I kept it going for more weeks and tens of thousands more words than I ever would have expected. Long enough to get a little accustomed to all that positive interaction and praise—and accustomed enough to miss it a little after I stopped giving people something to interact with.

A couple of days after the end of my month-long writing sprint, I got a DM from someone who’d been following along with the series—and the comments and commentary—and who broke the ice talking about She-Ra–related music. Which turned into talking about music in general, which turned into talking for the rest of the night… which happened the next day too, and then the day after that, and suddenly we’d talked for hours every day for a week.

Spoiler alert: we haven’t missed a day since. Not always _hours_ , but a few stolen minutes at least, every day since June.

This is AO3. You’re all genre-savvy post-modern new-media consumers. You know where this is going.

* * *

We fell in love! Obviously!!! And while it was as inevitable as gravity, it was a little more complicated than just literally falling.

Writing this series helped me better understand my last two big heartbreaks, but I was acutely aware that I wasn’t ready for another relationship yet: I was healing, and faster now thanks to that new understanding, but I wasn’t confident yet that I could avoid repeating old mistakes. My new friend was phenomenally sweet and charming, and we were on so many of the same wavelengths—I had an immediate crush, don’t get me wrong—but I couldn’t go there. Not yet.

All of which came up in conversation early, and it turned out she was _also_ working through a bit of a broken heart, and also on a firmly self-imposed romantic hiatus. How convenient, we decided: we understood each other! We wouldn’t have to censor ourselves, or worry about things taking an unwanted and unexpected turn—we’d officially closed that door between us. Which meant we could be as emotionally expressive and intimate with each other as we wanted to be—on, you know, a purely “platonic” level—right?

(This is AO3, we’re all genre-savvy, etc. I know you’re laughing. It’s fine.)

* * *

I’m still waiting for the return of the abundant free time and emotional energy I had back in May and June. As far as this series goes, there’s one more story I _need_ to write—the end of Shadow Weaver’s garden—and a couple sweet/spicy ones I really _want_ to write. I even have notes for a few non-HCtFD ideas that might spring to life once this beast’s lying closer to dormant. (I kind of miss writing angst—Adora/Catra/Double Trouble, anyone? All the vulnerability of Glitradora, none of the trust! 😈)

But any future additions to this continuity will be just that: additions. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wrote that first big continuous chunk with a unifying purpose. I needed— _needed_ —to sort out my heart. I needed to finally acknowledge and accept that the most broken and rejected and defensive parts of myself were worthy of love too—even if I had to personify some of those parts in queer cartoon characters to do it.

And I needed to figure out what that love might look like for me, what my heart truly needed—the best-case scenarios I’d stopped letting myself imagine, let alone hope for—because while I didn’t know it, the real thing was just around the corner.

* * *

I still don’t like to give _advice_ -advice, but I’ll tell you the biggest thing I’ve learned this year: receiving love from others is a skill too, a skill that has to be acquired and practiced. Children in healthy environments absorb it as naturally as language; survivors of abuse like me can find those skills have atrophied from neglect, if they ever had the chance to develop at all.

For a long time I thought I was unlovable, or at least prohibitively hard to love, or at least unattractively high-maintenance, and none of that’s true. I just had the extraordinary bad luck to encounter a long series of people who took advantage of the softness and openness of my heart, and that says so much more about those people than it does about me.

Once upon a time, I had a Catra in my life, who was always more willing to fuck up another dozen times on purpose than face one mistake long enough to fix it. I thought I was the Adora in that situation—I thought everything would work out if I just stayed—but I was wrong. I was the Scorpia. I had to leave. I had to let her go.

I had to find my Perfuma—someone who makes me feel safe, who values me, who respects my agency and illuminates my purpose, who helps me see where I belong. And because of these stories, I found her; and because of these stories, my heart was ready to accept her love; and now _our_ story is just beginning.

As for this series… there will be more, at least a little more, eventually—written by a slightly different version of me than the rest. The “Season 5 Scorpia” version of me, if you will. Give or take a few red lightning bolts.

Until then. 💖🦂⚡🌸🌱💝

—Zozo  
1 December 2020


End file.
